Re: Help! I've destroyed a language!

On Tue, 25 Feb 2003 12:08:34 -0500
Mike Ellis <nihilsum@...> wrote:

> Jan van Steenbergen wrote:
>
> >Mike, have you been able to recover the file after all?
>
> No, it was that badly corrupted. The lexicon could not be extracted from
> the archive, copied, moved, renamed, opened, viewed with any program...
> etc. etc. All the other files were extracted from the archive and backed up
> elsewhere, though.
> I tried opening the file with winzip, winrar, powerarchiver and a few
> others I got off cnet and deleted when they didn't work. I tried pkzipfix,
> which also couldn't touch the file.
>   Most of the lexicon has been "rebuilt" by combining older dictionary
> files I had elsewhere, removing duplicate entries, and updating words which
> I had changed. The upside is that I discovered I know more Rhean by memory
> than I ever thought! Then I had to search the archives of this and other
> lists for any Rhean translations and vocab, and the relays, and any corpus
> files posted anywhere, and add all the words from those.
> The rebuilt lexicon sits now at 2252 words, a few hundred short of the
> original. Every update is saved both on disk and uploaded to the web;
> neither copy is compressed.
> But thanks for your concern! And also thanks to those people who responded
> privately with their suggestions.
>
> M
>

Mike,

Why don't you put the corrupted file somewhere downloadable, so people can have
a look at it. I know I'd have a peek, but I don't want to get your hopes up by
actually *asking* you. I probably can't do anything; if it's a compression problem,
the data is probably gone, sorry to say. But you never know. Make it publically
available, so interested types can try to squeeze what data they can out of it
(data out of noise, like blood out of rock). At least then you can be fairly sure
that there's nothing in it. [If you don't have web space, send it to me, and I'll
put it up]


s.
----
The best way to remove a virus is with vi and a steady hand.
Stephen Mulraney... ataltane at ataltane.net... ataltane.net